Say goodbye to your favorite Twitter apps, automated accounts, tools and services. Twitter forces everyone who makes creative things that make the platform fun and enjoyable to pay or leave.
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Early Wednesday morning, Twitter’s official developer account @TwitterDev announced that the company would no longer offer a free access tier to its APIs. Instead, we will soon be offering paid subscriptions to Twitter’s base API layer. And how soon will this happen? next week. February 9th.
Elon Musk has locked his Twitter account and made it private. Here’s why:
An API is a software interface that allows two applications to communicate with each other, and this particular API allows developers to access Twitter data and services through official channels. Similarly, many developers have been able to create a number of free and paid products that enhance the Twitter experience. Requiring payment will definitely disable many free services and accounts.
This move has already been heavily criticized by users across the board.Some developers already announced(opens in new window) Intention to terminate the Twitter project.
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For example, the creator of the Possum Every Hour Twitter account will auto-tweet pictures of possums every hour. Posted(opens in new window) The account will stop tweeting when the free API level ends next week. This account has over half a million Twitter followers.
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The decision to remove all free access to the API shows just how profitable Twitter is.The company lost After Musk took over and started implementing his vision for the Twitter platform, he captured about 50% of advertisers, the primary source of revenue. To make up for lost revenue, Musk rolled out new paid products such as his $8 Twitter Blue premium plan. The ability to purchase verified badges on Twitter Blue has turned more brands off the platform. And so far, Twitter hasn’t even been able to do that. conversion 0.1% of monthly active users become paying subscribers.
Removing the free API tier is a dubious path to increased revenue, as it may stifle the creativity of developers who do not intend to monetize their projects. These creators often create services that promote and encourage the use of Twitter. Small indie developers just starting out can implement their ideas on platforms that still offer free API access, such as Facebook and YouTube.
It’s important to note that Twitter already has a paid service tier of their API. This existing premium tier removes the access restrictions implemented in the basic tier and serves social media companies that generate revenue from providing Twitter data.
What about scammers and spambots? Won’t this decision kill them? Unlikely.
To access Twitter’s API, users had to apply for and be approved for an official developer account. In this way, Twitter was able to monitor its usage and investigate bad actors. For this reason, many scammers and spammers who use automation do not use APIs in the first place, instead using workarounds such as web scrapers.
Elon Musk already killed Earlier this month, we turned off third-party Twitter clients such as Twitterific and Tweetbot. Just this week, users complained about Musk’s recent algorithm change making their feeds unusable. Now he’s coming for everything else. He doesn’t give developers details about the cost of maintaining the project and the service. And let’s not forget, these developers only have a week to figure it all out.
